1.6 feedback

[Slvynn]

I just though about time in which DW played. Well, at start he saw himself as impersonation of Shai Hulud. (CoD) In GEoD things are different, but its not in DW timeframe. He lived his "unpredicted" life and went where its went. There is alot of stuff about this in CoD and GEoD. There are lots of traps and he had unknown before him, and possibility of "trap" lines as well, and he wasnt mistake proof, even as god. So he had not plan, and had not any preference actually. But we can argue here alot. I accept what you say, that is right, simply its bit different timeframe. He was changing. At start he was Shai-Hulud, the Desert Demon, and he was sought as Shai-hulud, and then his unpredicted threads brought him to some other thing. Thats how i see his fate.

 

[Slvynn]

Found another bug - CTD at start if unit placed on hut generated by map script. Very random and hardly noticable , but i had 2 such CTDs in my experience.
SL23

 

[Slvynn]

Another observation - i think latest tweaks and additions made Ecaz too stron - his economy is vaaaaaay to strong now. New smugglers which are abit cheaty way to generate cash thru production, Financial trait, Phi trait, Gardens (1 TR) and 4 !!! landing stages - that means hapinnes and health and TR galore. Perhaps lets make it 3 at least (only 1 smuggler heaven) with better passive bonuses to city that built it?
More than that you can build Smuggler Heaven and Landing stage in same city and their bonuses overlap. Thats a serious NW bonus (1 TR +50% TR income), and overllapping it in GPF capital is kinda another big advantage, so perhaps it will be more balanced and reasonable if city which have landing stage cant build SH, and vice versa

 

[Ahriman]

I haven't tested it, but this doesnt' really surprise me.

Less cash from smugglers and only 3 landing stages seems reasonable. What tech does the garden come at? Maybe it should move later.
Maybe he shouldnt' be philosophical; financial/protective?

OTOH... remember that trade is basically all Ecaz has. Other factions will have lots of cool mechanics and more powerful UUs, so the Ecaz economy dose need to be stronger than others.

 

[Slvynn]

Yes but now it too strong, it will be very strong if it will be tuned down, atm its overwhelming.
Stacking Trade routes, staking national wonders with mass affecting effect on Trade routes, Phi + Fin, 4 offworld recources, smugglers. Thats too much. I think that smugglers are almost ok (need to check more, but light nerf will be ok i think), but SH should be only 1 and not buildable in same city with LS.

 

[davidlallen]

OTOH... remember that trade is basically all Ecaz has. Other factions will have lots of cool mechanics and more powerful UUs, so the Ecaz economy dose need to be stronger than others.

Ecaz also has Elaccan Gladiator; but in general, the idea is that each civ should have a *noticeable* special power. We have succeeded for Tleilaxu (plague!) and maybe Ecaz, but we have not succeeded for the others yet.

 

[Slvynn]

Also agree on Traits. Duke Leto is Phi Fin. Perhaps Duke Leto can be Cha Phi (oh this fits him alot), and Ecaz Fin / Exp (gardens and all their apothecarry and plants - health, and Exp fit to Ecaz smugglers ) , and Roma Attani Fin Pro (nice boost on guardsman, militaristic ordos, their distrust , good pair for her Fin/Agg friend)

 

[VlaDeatHell]

Greetings guyz
First, great job on the mod, been playing it for around 2 months and I got to say it really brought me back to the age of Dune and Dune 2 (that's 20 years ago for the youngsters )
Couple of things to comment about the recent build :
First, got 4 complete walkthroughs on Noble as Paul (Fremen), Shadam (Corino), Leto I (Atreides) and Baron Harkonnen (Harkonnen) - Arakis, Large, all default map options.

1. Terraforming victory needs fixing IMO, first and last game (Fremen and Atreides) I initially aimed for this type of victory, having control of 17&/21% percent of the world territory according to victory conditions advisor and terraformed around 90% of the tiles that COULD be terraformed (that excludes all desert, hills and all polar) to full (grass or open water - that was not the term but the lake icon) net me around 124 tiles of the required 187 on one the maps, around the same on the other... SO - you should either change the percentage to only include the terraformable tiles or change the mechanism whatsoever - currently it's way easier by the times you have that kind of territory and working economy the just aim for vassalizating everyone out there as was the case in ALL my games. Also, about that topic, Liet Kynes actually says that they need to include 3% of the WATER on the PLANET in a ecological cycle, not to terraform 3% of the planet. That's not that important though as I like the current idea, it just needs to be tweaked to be more easily reachable (the former one with the 7 reservoirs was a joke, got to agree).

2. The last bomber CANNOT bombard city defences... which is absurd.

3. The 2nd city defence bonus building (the shield one) cannot be reduced by anything except the hornet bombers (and looking at 2. it really doesn't work well on late stages of the game).

4. The other victory conditions need tweaking too, I mean come on? It's just way easier to roll over everyone than trying to meet them... Last game I initially vassalized the Tleilaxu as he was right next to me with the second bladesmen, steamrolled the BG with rollers and the 2nd tier artillery unit (after the maulas which I personally find useless), teched up like a and then just went on rampage with an army of fedaykins, shield fighters, assault cannos and light scorpions + carryals, couple of suspensor destroyers and couple of topters...

5. Holy Shrines counting as a World Wonder not a good idea at all... I mean, what happened last game is that I found Quizzarate in a city that already have build the limit of 9 world wonders... so no shiny shrine for me and fixing my economy? (not that I needed one, just not a cool option).

6. Ecaz OP. Either one of their traits need tweaking or changing their smuggler special to at least 1 building... All games they tech up like crazy and usually outtech me which considering I feel like a civ mediocre at least and playin on noble is ridicilous... Vanillay BTS I play on monarch on large maps...

7. Some tweaking of the polar regions would be nice, maybe adding 1% ice hills and some water after terraforming would be nice... We've all seen lakes in the mountains right? Not to mention polar is actually frozen water ice, correct Maybe special improvement like polar ice melter or something that converts 1 tile or something to water ? (major food + minor gold, something like 8/2 like the normal lakes), or more like just melt the polar ice resource to a lake... They just seem a little ... poorly designed... currently.

8. Minor tweaks about resources, maybe make stravidium and uranium visible earlier so you may plan a way to get them before actually need them? Like the Oil resource in Vanilla... it's just a thought, not that important.

That's probally all I got to say, will write again when I have something to add... Again great job on the mod. Special thanks to the graphics guyz for the dunes background. Also taking sounds from Emperor : Battle for Dune and Dune 2000 is a *thunmbs up* idea ! Keep up the good work!

 

[Ahriman]

DeathHell, thanks very much for the feedback! This kind of feedback on specific features is incredibly valuable. Glad you're enjoying the mod! It looks like we managed to convince you to register/make your first post just for this mod? Very flattering.

1. Interesting. Well, better too weak than too strong. Still though, it should be very difficult to get any victory condition, particularly a passive one, while controlling only 17-21% of the world's land area. If you had controlled ~30% of the land area, and had a similar proportion of your territory terraformed, then you would have achieved victory. So it still sounds like this victory would be far easier than domination, or any other.

2. Which one - the Cielgo stealth bomber? This sounds like an oversight.
But some hornets are fighters, not bombers - you're sure you mean one of the bombers?

3. Yeah, something is weird with the Force Shield, I've observed this in the Succsesion game.

4.

It's just way easier to roll over everyone

I would suggest that you try increasing the difficulty level. It has always been easy to roll over opponents on Noble difficulty level. Try playing on a +1 difficulty level to what you normally play vanilla civ.
Which other victory conditions are you talking about specifically?

5. I didn't even realize we still had a cap on the number of wonders you could have in a city.
I haev never managed to build 9 wonders in a single city. Again, I would suggest trying the game on a higher difficult level. I recommend Emperor or Immortal.
I'd have no objection to removing such a cap though.

6. It does sound like we have made the Ecaz economy a bit too strong. I suspect its from the smuggler unit- maybe this should be more expensive, or provide less gold?

7. I don't think hills on an area scoured flat by a polar ice sheet would make much sense geologically. My suggestion for boosting the poles is to have the ice-caps provide fresh water, like a well, so that cottages adjacent to them get +1 hammers.
I could see a melting lens from a very late-game tech that would be like an improved ice-drilling improvement, with a higher water yield.

8. Worth considering.

Again, thanks for the feedback! Well-organized and easy to understand.

 

[VlaDeatHell]

Overall, I think I really should tune up the difficulty. And yes, I've a long time lurker in the forums but I don't write unless I have something important to say

1. I mean having ACTUAL control of that kind of territory, like in my cultural borders. Vassalization does not work well with the terraforming victory since first you cannot force other civs to terraform (yes, you can force them to accept the arakis paradise civic but they just roll back when they can if it's not scripted to like it). Still I think it need tweaking by the way it actually calculates the tiles need. That's only IMO.

2. Yes, I think it's that one... Absolutely sure it is a bomber, I have fully upgraded fighters in that army also.

3. That happens in all my games, latest BTS patch and Dune Wars patch. They just stay at 100% defence except when I bomb them with hornet bombers.

4. Will try a game on Monarch next and see how that works.

5. There is a 9 world wonder cap currently and 4 national wonder per city. I think Rhye's and Fall got that right, no WW cap and 3 national so you cannot make such an uber specialized city... Currently I can make the +50% hammers with spice, the +exp and +military production NWs in a city, make a military academy and add one more NW?! For example in my fully hammer oriented capital that in late game produces Heavy Scropion in 1 turn on 24 expirience? A bit OP IMO.

6. Will play with Ecas on Monarch next game and write you some feedback, maybe I will be able to add something specific.

7. Pretty much a better point than mine.

Sorry for the gammar, currently working and doing a hell lot of stuff at the moment...
P.S. Thanks for the warm welcome.

 

[keldath]

hello vladdeathell, welcome and thanks for the extensive feedback,

2. The last bomber CANNOT bombard city defences... which is absurd.

this is probably something missed in the xml part, you can set which missions each flyer can have -its a dale/revdcm code.

 

[Slvynn]

1st Nice to see you here.

2nd - i already made detailed feedback about Ecaz - their National wonders stacking and they get 4 !!! Offworld resources ,and too much stacking Traderoutes, with double +50% to trade route yield bonus. 4 offworld resources -thats crazy!!!! . Adding Traits and Smugglers it become too powerfull. I already posted suggestion , from my deepest observation, what need to be done in order to fix Ecaz.
Bringing SH to limit of 1 , and make in unbuildable where LS built, reducing bonuses and fixing traits, making Ecaz Fin Exp.

 

[Ahriman]

1. I mean having ACTUAL control of that kind of territory, like in my cultural borders. Vassalization does not work well with the terraforming victory

I see no particular problem with having the terraforming victory not encourage mass vassalization.

But I wouldn't mind having terraformed tiles within vassal territory count for half in terms of counting terraformed tile control, just as they count for half when calculating domination tile control.
Is that codeable?

Currently I can make the +50% hammers with spice, the +exp and +military production NWs in a city, make a military academy and add one more NW?!

Well, we're redesigning the wonders - take a look at the wonder design thread.
But unlimited world wonders/3 national wonders seems somewhat reasonable. The difficulty comes from things like the Landing Stages, that don't have particularly powerful local effects but still use the National Wonder mechanic.

Sorry for the gammar, currently working and doing a hell lot of stuff at the moment...

You're very easy to understand

this is probably something missed in the xml part, you can set which missions each flyer can have -its a dale/revdcm code.

THis sounds right.

Bringing SH to limit of 1 , and make in unbuildable where LS built, reducing bonuses and fixing traits, making Ecaz Fin Exp.

SH = landing stage substitute? Limiting that to 1 and making it incompatible with a landing stage seems reasonable. I'm not sure about reducing their bonuses though, they *should* be the trade-masters. Every civ should be overpowered, in their own particular way.

 

[Slvynn]

SH = landing stage substitute? Limiting that to 1 and making it incompatible with a landing stage seems reasonable. I'm not sure about reducing their bonuses though, they *should* be the trade-masters. Every civ should be overpowered, in their own particular way.

I dodnt agree here, with way of this statement. All civs should have own powers, and be profeciant , and have own advantages and ways to victory - sure, but still, there should be not every civ overpowered as it in FFH. That is bad and hard to control, it hurt Ai civ vs AI civ balance, and hurt MP.
There should be affinity, but should be not "overpowering". I say that ecaz now the easiest civ to play in the game, because economy = all, and no matter hwat UU u have, you just outech all of them quickly. There should be delicate balance, finely tuned, and thats a direction we should to keep, if we want to make mod interseting for both SP and MP

Take any sucessfull strategic games with balance - they being played for years, while have totally different civs, Starcraft, Homeworld, more less MOO and many others.

 

[keldath]

Quote:
this is probably something missed in the xml part, you can set which missions each flyer can have -its a dale/revdcm code.
THis sounds right.

oops, meant we can change it (for 1.6.5) not you didnt mean to give other to work on it.

when i first implemented units to dune, i meant that for early flyers - when they upgraded - they get more bombarding options, this probably got mixed up along the way.


also,
hope we will cost up the techs for 1.6.5.

 

[davidlallen]

Regarding the Ecaz landing stage and smuggler's haven, I agree that having both of these in one city is too powerful. My plan is to rename the smuggler's haven to Ecazi Landing Stage, and give it a national limit of 4. Then I will make the landing stage unbuildable by Ecaz and make the Ecazi landing stage only buildable to Ecaz. This way, other civs will be able to build 2 landing stages, and the Ecaz will be able to build 4 landing stages. You would never have multiple of these in the same city.

Regarding the terraforming conditions, today the victory threshold is simply 3% of the land area, that is, map width * map height / 33. I think most people agreed that the previous condition of building 7 reservoirs of liet is too easy, so in 1.6.4 we changed it. We can still tune it further.

One suggestion is to exclude tiles which cannot be terraformed, including mesa, desert and polar. We can do that, but then of course we would change the divisor from 33 to some smaller number. This may be better because there could be low land percentage maps where the condition is actually impossible. So, for example, suppose I exclude desert, mesa, and polar tiles and then divide by 10 instead of 33. Does that seem reasonable?

Another suggestion is to count half of the terraformed tiles of all vassals. This is certainly a good idea, and it is relatively easy to implement. I will add this.

 

[Slvynn]

I think that still - 4 landings stages is too powerfull. Thats alot of hapinnes and health and that is very strong boost, and backened with Ecaz commerce affinity and other features it is still too powerfull. Please test it. I think Ecaz need another, additional nerfing.

 

[davidlallen]

Is three landing stages better than four?

 

[Ahriman]

I would vote for 3. The trade goods are pretty powerful, and 4 would let them monopolize too many trade goods too easily if they get to offworld trade first.

Also, put the landing stage and Ecazi landing stage buildings back to having a real hammer cost, not a 1 hammer cost.
I haven't tested, but I my intuition is that the right way to go is to buff the unique features of other factions rather than weakening trade too much. But I haven't tested. I think the FFH "every faction is overpowered' design them actually works very well. Each faction should have a powerful strat but require play in a particular unique way in order to maximize that.

Eg Atreides could probably use a UU hornet, maybe with +1 range and some mix of +% vs hornets, +evasion%, +intercept%,
Harkonnen could use a variant on the Atreides-draft; hordes of weak troops Soviet style seem like a Harkonnen thing.

A suggestion for Ecaz: is there a way to make the trade route bonuses only benefit foreign trade routes? Ecaz should have to have lots of open border agreements and keep lots of people happy in order to get large benefits from their trade routes.

Another possibility, is that any large trade bonus buildings could have a military production penalty.

 

[Slvynn]

Agree on all Ahrimans points completely, except one which state " every faction is overpowered" - there should be balance in all things - there should be matter of perofmance who wins, and not whose benefits are more usefull in particular circumstances. Thats i very important - there should be always some counter thing in civ B which can counter civ A benefits, if focused. Skill should be pmatter, performance, and not circumstances. Again - this and flavor are not opposite - and its very good task to preserve them both. I am not denying things but beware of importance of paper -scissors- stone relationships.
Every civ should have counter to any other civ. And vice versa. This should be matter of player's choice, and relationships like Civ A is good against Civ B should be avoided.
By preserving "not-circumstance-influenced" balance mod gain alot of values, by not having it - mod lose its values. Hope you understand , what i am warning about. I am not denying. I am even agreeing at some measure, but warning about some red line which should be crossed, in name of preservation of mod's value for sport-like MP, fair battles, and much longer interest from SP players.